Montessori Method of Education

The name “Montessori” is from a woman named Dr. Maria Montessori who lived from 1870 to 1952. She was the first female Doctor of Medicine in Italy. Through her work with children, she developed her unique educational method, known as the Montessori method. This system of education is both a philosophy of child development and a rationale for guiding such growth. It is based on the child’s developmental needs for freedom within limits, as well as a carefully prepared environment, which guarantees exposure to materials and experiences.
The main premises of Montessori education are:
Children are to be respected as different from adults and as individuals who differ from each other.
Children possess an unusual sensitivity and intellectual ability to absorb and learn from their environments that are unlike those of the adult both in quality and capacity.
The most important years of a child’s growth are the first six years of life when unconscious learning is gradually brought to the conscious level.

The Whole Child Approach: The primary goal of a Montessori program is to help the children reach their full potential in all areas of life. Activities promote the development of social skills, emotional growth, and physical coordination as well as cognitive preparation.
The Prepared Environment: In the self-directed classroom, the whole learning environment (classroom, materials, and social setting) must be supportive of the children.
The Montessori Materials: Dr. Montessori’s observations led her to design a number of multi-sensory, sequential, and self-correcting materials to facilitate learning.
The Teacher: The Montessori teacher functions as a designer of the environment, resource person, role model, demonstrator, record-keeper and meticulous observer of each child’s behavior and growth. Years of extensive training is required for a full Montessori credential.

Dr. Montessori has had an impact on the field of education and the way we understand and teach children today. Her influence can be seen not only in the number of schools that bear her name, but throughout the fields of child care, education, and child development. Many of her ideas are now part of our common knowledge, language, and thinking about children. She was an innovator in the field of education and ideas that were once met with great resistance in her day now are accepted as natural aspects of childhood. Modern kindergarten classrooms use the child sized furniture and didactic materials first introduced by Montessori. Such current concepts as individualized learning and readiness programs, manipulative learning, ungraded classes, combined age groups, team teaching, and open classrooms reflect many of her early insights.